


Trust

by SaintSaens



Series: Circumnavigo [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gen, I have no idea why i wrote this, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mention of - Freeform, Napoleonic Wars, Nationalism, Patriotism, all that amazing jazz, booker is his own warning, he hates Napoleon, tl;dr Booker is not a nationalist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27251827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintSaens/pseuds/SaintSaens
Summary: When Nile finally manages to call Booker, she is  pained by the state he is in. Questions arise, between trust, a past that doesn't let go and sweet memories, but mostly, it's about a punch and french nationalism.Don't ask Nile, she isn't quite sure either.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman
Series: Circumnavigo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959520
Comments: 7
Kudos: 91





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, because I am a sucker for hurt etc, Booker, who was a soldier for Napoleon, is definitely not a fan of Napoleon. Never was, even before he got in his wars. (Why? I actually have a whole fic written on that so... (: next time?) But here is Booker basically having enough of stupid french far-right idiots and ranting at it to poor Nile, somewhat? More like the team remembering fondly Booker's instinctive reactions to anything close to French nationalism. 
> 
> This shouldn't be read as a stand-alone. This would be after the 4th chapter of No Man Left Behind (Circumnavigo serie), when Joe and Booker happened to have a talk?sort of? And Nile is trying to pick up the pieces somehow.

Nile calls, a day later as she had promised Joe, not wanting to bother Booker too much and at the same time not wanting to leave him on his own after the conversation both men had had. 

Booker picks up on the eighth ringtone.   
Nile was already bitting her nails. 

"Wha's up?" she hears him mumble.

There is disappointment rising in her chest. The mumble is the same as last evening. 

"Still drinking?" she says, aiming for a light tone but falling flat to the judgement she holds tight. 

He sighs. She waits, working her jaw to avoid clenching her teeth in frustration. He had been doing better. He had stopped being too drunk, the past month. For her, he had said. Before... 

Before Joe. 

"It's been...rough, that past day." Booker finally allows. She hears a clinking sound not far from the phone.

"Have you been drinking since then?" She snaps, feeling a sudden wave of despair. All the time she had spent talking to him, trying to prevent him from falling back into old habits, distracting him. As if it meant nothing. As if it was for nothing. 

His silence is as good as an answer to her. 

She opens her mouth, feels a fire coming up to burn her tongue. She wants to lash out. Because he's proving Joe right, now. Because he's proving to everyone that he can't handle anything on his own. That he can't get better. He can't get back up by himself. Joe is right. Booker can't let that pass, she believes. 

"Is it because of Joe?" she asks, instead of letting the fire out, redirecting the anger to the core of the matter. 

Booker is silent again, but Nile thinks he might be thinking now, instead of just hearing her words. 

"In part" he says finally "but not only. It...didn't help, but it didn't cause it."

Nile ponders his words, remembering the unanswered calls.

"Did something happen?" she asks, feeling her voice rise in tone even if she tries to keep control. After yesterday, she still feels frail and brittle, like anything could break her spirit. She doesn't want Booker to suffer, that's the only thing she knows. "Booker, what happened?"

"It's stupid" he starts saying "I shouldn't have called for that, it's just-"

Nile hears a muffled noise and a groan. "Booker?" She asks, her heart beating loud. If she had him in front of her, she's certain he would be hiding his face behind his hands right now. 

"I'm fine, it's just... I punched someone? Yesterday. That's what I was calling about, when Joe picked up..."

Nile closes her eyes. Booker, she thinks. Punching someone. 

She feels a headache looming again. 

"What the hell happened?" She whispers, mind reeling to what could have triggered Booker so much and finding her knowledge empty. 

This man in her memory would have never reacted physically to anything, unless pushed to it. That's her only certainty. 

Whatever pushed him, it couldn't have been about the team because no one knows about the team. She has it on good authority that they are one of the few things he would be protective of. It couldn't have been about his family, no one would have known about them either, and he has said so, he didn't speak a lot with other people around his neighborhood. The only thing that comes up would have been someone insulting him, personally and by proxy anyone he cares about.

But even then, Booker reacting physically...doesn't seem likely considering the state of his own self-esteem and his physical condition most of the times.

Unless someone attacked him first? But he wouldn't have felt the need to call her for that, right? He's fought off people many times. He's never looked back on those, as far as she can tell. The number of dead bodies in his wake is not of his concern. Or at least not enough of a bother, compared to other matters that clutter his mind. So for a punch...

Nile feels her mind working with thin air now. 

"Are you alright?"she's left to ask, because there's nothing else that comes up to her. She can only hope he is fine. 

"I don't think I am."Booker says, with a light laugh that breaks her heart down "It was stupid. Nothing much. I shouldn't have done that" she hears bitterness in his voice and the mystery deepens. 

"What happened, Booker?" 

In the corridor, Andy walks by and stops as soon as she hears the name. Her body transforms, from coming awake after a nap to ready for a fight. Her eyes are hooked on the phone in Nile's hand. She flicks them to Nile and when the younger woman gestures for her to wait for a second, she walks closer, silent and focused. 

She comes to stand beside Nile, and Nile suddenly feels like a child beside this timeless being. Booker is only breathing on the other side of the line, as if he's heard her arrival too. 

Nile doesn't put the phone away from her ear, thinking about the day before, when Joe had happened on the phone ringing, and what it had brought, what the consequences were, now, for Booker and for Nile. What they needed to talk about.

Booker breathes, Nile thinks.

She won't break again the trust they have, the two of them between one another. No matter the desires of the others. Joe's blink into their reality yesterday had made Nile realize how much she valued Booker's thoughts and views, at the possibility of loosing him after that conversation. Not being able to call him for an entire night after that whirlwind had been heart-wrenching. Now, she wanted to be the wall around his ruins, as he rebuilt himself up and she stood, gazing around and trying to see the world he had been in and where she was now standing. With Andy, fighting with death in sight, Yusuf and Nicolo, existing to help, and Quyhn, dying with every breath. It was an unstable balance, and she wondered how her own weight would bring the equilibrium to stand. Booker had fallen, tipping the scale, and they were all reworking around it again. She just watched, absorbing all she could in this new reality of hers. 

Nile thinks, and takes a step away from Andy, turning to face her fully. Booker has yet to say a word again, she can hear him moving around, as if talking had prickled him.

Andy looks at her, doesn't let anything show on her face. She just waits. 

Nile realizes there is some sort of trust there too, as if now she was the one giving guidance in the matter of handling Booker's exile. As if her opinion on it mattered, as much as any other. 

"Booker, before you say anything" Nile starts, carefully "Tell me this: do you need me to tell the others about it?" 

The silence stretches on the other end of the line. She bits her lips, what if this makes him close-up? What if he hangs up again? She couldn't take it...but she would have to understand. 

"I don't need-" he starts before cutting himself off and exhaling "You can, if you think you need to. I just, don't want them to be hearing about something they would rather not know. It's your call." he admits. 

"No, it's not. It's yours. So tell me." She replies straight away. There will be no compromises. He will state his choices. 

"I won't mind, I think..."

"If you do, tell me." she insists "Just, say the word and I won't tell anyone anything. It's just, I believe, honestly that they would want to know, Book." Nile says, looking at Andy as she stands there, waiting. "If something happened to you, they would want to know."

Nile can see Andy's eyes softening at her tone. 

"I trust you with them" she hears Booker mumble at the same time, before he coughs. Nile blinks. There is a definite sound of glass hitting metal. 

Booker starts speaking quickly after that, as if it will make her forget the words he had said. Nile only looks back at Andy, listening intently. She doesn't know what to feel, at the trust he is claiming and the one she is also noticing in Andy. She feels like she's tittering on the other side of the edge she was standing on just the previous day, when all that trust had almost come crashing down with her in the middle. 

"There was a commemoration..." Booker is saying "I was coming back from a walk and there were these guys, around a statue of Marianne" he bites out, as if spitting venom and Nile has to work her mind around back to her french course in college, to remember that Marianne isn't just a girl but the French republic personified, and she makes a face at that. Andy cocks her head to the side."one of them was talking from a platform about Napoleon, and De Gaulle, and how they were great men, and how France needed another great man. How we needed a stronger country, how we couldn't let the nation and its heritage go to pieces... and there were people around him, and I think I cursed or something but anyway one of them heard me and he started calling at me, about how I didn't know anything, I was just a lowlife who had never had to fight for anything a day in his life, and how it was only with people like them that France could be proud again...and I lost it, I don't know." 

Nile breathes out figuring it out "You punched a guy. Because of Napoleon." she says, and Andy's eye narrow, not in concern but in confusion. 

"I punched him.Because of Napoleon" Booker huffs. "Feels like my entire life is a big joke revolving around that _petit tondu_ 's ability to fuck people over without them knowing it..." 

Nile needs to repeat the information, because she needs to be sure she understood it right. It seemed so ludicrous, compared to everything they had going on right now in their lives. But she did admit, it would have to be the small things that would send anyone storming out and reacting. "So. There was a guy, who was lauding at you the merits of the man who sent you to die for his own agenda, who judged you without knowing you, and you punched him. But you're alright?"

Andy's face looses its tightness, understanding coming to her. She sighs. 

"I might have punched him twice?" Booker tries, with an airy tone. "He didn't fall the first time around.But I'm fine, myself."

"You punched him twice. But you're fine." 

Nile would love to believe her life to be a joke in those moments. She wants to laugh out loud at Booker's delivery, the situation. Even if the consequences aren't as funny as she would like them to be.

Andy huffs, and gestures to Nile that she is going to the kitchen. Nile nods back. 

She plops herself down on the chair in front of the unlit fireplace.

"I know it's bad, no need to sound so defeated. I know, I shouldn't have-" Booker is saying. 

"Oh no, please god, you were right!" she shouts as she hears him berating himself. She can hear Andy laughing in the kitchen at her voice and she winces, trying to contain her enthusiasm. "Believe me, I haven't been here in Europe long but god this place doesn't need a remake of Napoleon" she amends shortly. "Dictatorship-wise et caetera."

"If only that were the worst..." Booker says, before cursing. As if he hadn't meant to say that bit out loud for her to hear.

"What?" Nile is already on the edge of her seat, at his tone. 

  
There's something more. She can't not know. That would be torture. He can't do that to her. That would be mean. "Don't keep me waiting, man, come on. What happened next?" 

\- - -

"You're sure, Book?" 

"Yes. I'm sure." 

"Thank you. They will appreciate it, as I do." 

\- - - 

When Nile hangs up the phone, joining the others in the kitchen as Joe is setting the table and Andy is mixing the salad, she looks at them each, wondering about their inner doubts, how they would fare when faced with their past.

Joe puts down the last glass and looks at her with a worried gaze, his eyes flicking to the phone carefully. "Everything alright?" his voice is stilted, and Nile grimly appreciates his attempt at caring. She knows he didn't handle it well either, yesterday. She knows it pains him. So the fact that he is trying, to reach out, be better, it means the world to her. It might mean a lot more to Booker, if he heard.

Nile breathes deeply. 

"Is Book-" Joe tries again at her silence, but his voice is tentative, she sees him holding back. Like he can't make himself ask that much. That far. She realizes they would have heard her speak to Booker. She suddenly feels like it might not be the best idea to tell them. How they would react, what they would make of Sebastien's reaction. And the consequences now. But where would their trust lie if she keeps it to herself, after all the talk she had had in the living-room right then?

"Is he-" Andy looks too at the phone held close in her hand "good?" 

"No" Nile says, simply, feeling all the weight of that word and the reality Booker is living through alone, in France. 

Nicky turns from the soup cooking on the stove, exchanging a glance with Joe, who straightens at her word, his eyes focusing on her. 

"Is there anything-" he starts, and now his voice is firmer, like his doubts can't linger where Booker's safety is concerned. Nile spares a thought to wondering if Joe is conscious of what he is doing, but she doesn't want to let all of these questions fester again. Honesty might not be the best policy all the time, but now, thinking back to Booker and to what happened, she believes she needs to get something out. For herself. Just in case.

"Has Booker recently had...dealings with the french justice system?" 

Nile realizes straight away that the formulation might leave a few things to be desired. Joe and Nicky turn fully toward her and Andy just clenches harder the cutlery she was using in the salad bowl. 

"It's just -" she gestures widely, hands raised in a peaceful manner to calm whatever thirst for blood they might suddenly have boiling up their veins "-so there was a thing about Napoleon, in between others?" she says, testing the waters, and she sees Joe's face fall and Andy's eyes close "and a guy came up to Booker, some right-wing mentality, and he started sprouting shit about Napoleon, and all the great things he had done for France, and then it came to protecting pure French people, and the French territory, and the culture, and how Book didn't know anything about that, how ignorant and protected he would be from the reality of defending one's country, and so-" Nile sprouts like she can't stop, because with how the others look she feels like she might never be quick enough before they go and have at it at Booker again, for something he couldn't control and she absolutely understands "so - Booker kind of punched him? And he apparently started a small riot? And he might have been seen by a couple of cops? So yeah. I was wondering if I should be concerned, or not. For him. Considering the immortal thing, and that he might be called in court to answer for...well, sending one person to hospital? Or more? Purely in self defense the other ones though..."

Nile waits as she finishes speaking. She doesn't know what they will pick on, the fact that Booker had had a violent outburst, or that now he might be on the police's radar for not managing his anger.

Nicky looks to the ceiling. " _'French people_ '" he quotes her "just what was needed."

Nile blinks. 

Joe shakes his head, and Nile can see him trying to contain a smile "Was there a rant? Please tell me there was a rant?" he asks her. 

Really not the reaction she expected. 

"Yeah" Nile deadpans, because she has a hard time understanding their priorities right now, but she feels like if she doesn't follow they will leave her behind. Also, even if the rant doesn't fit in the top of her own priorities, it had been bad. She can't help but add: "To me. Because he sort of couldn't rant to the guy he had punched? And apparently he needed to vent it out?" 

Andy huffs. "Poor man. Misunderstood to his core. Did he talk about the country's borders?" 

Nile rolls her eyes. "He did." She sits herself down "God, I never thought he would be passionate about that sort of things. Sort of understood he wasn't really French too? And that France didn't mean anything, in his time? And the language thing was all bullshit? I don't know, sort of zoned out after an hour of it really. I've got to pick up some books too...but the justice system thing? Should we be concerned? Tell Copley maybe?"

Nicky stirs the soup "One of his sons,he was really into preserving the local identity.Also Booker can handle himself on that end, don't worry about it.If it's nothing life-threatening, he can manage. He knows how it works." he says as he adds pepper to the preparation.

"This is definitely not reassuring." Nile shakes her head. "So, it's not the first time it happened?" she asks, hoping for the best but knowing deep down she should expect the worst. Maybe she misjudged Booker. She hopes not. 

Joe's face makes her think she couldn't be more wrong.

He snickers. "I think it's the fourth time he's been arrested or tried for that? I've lost count of the times he wasn't in official troubles after a while. Also not counting before he became an immortal. Always around a celebration of Napoleon's greatness. Or French patriotism, depending on the arguments he's on the receiving end of."

Nile strangles herself "I'm sorry? Not counting _before_? What the hell-"

"Ask him. He absolutely hates talking about it." Nicky deadpans. 

Andy winks at her "Do question him about Vidocq, while you're at it. He loves the man."

Nile frowns at her spoon. She fills the information under her ask-later mental file, and decides to pick up on something that's been bugging her mind since Booker started ranting. 

"So, Booker isn't strictly speaking French? Or he doesn't think of himself as French. Even though it's easier to say so for him nowadays." She ponders aloud, considering to trust those old people to decide whether or not they should be anxious about being registered for crimes in any police's file. 

"Don't tell him that he is French when he is in France, or even refer to him as French for anything that is not administrative" Joe says, sitting down "Andy learned that the hard way."

The woman pulls a face. "That wasn't my smartest move." she concedes looking at Nile "He had just come back from the Napoleonic war, and I told him as a Frenchman maybe he should have more rebellion in his blood when faced with new challenges, what with their revolution had brought about in Europe by then...it didn't end well." 

"Let me give you a clue" Nicky says lightly as he brings the soup to the table "Sebastien's wife was around."

Nile hisses.

Andy nods. "Exactly."

"She had a mean swing, Joséphine" Joe declares as he grabs a bowl . "A mean swing." he repeats, and nods at the soup "Want any?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I don't know if it was interesting, I hope you still had a good time (and it wasn't disappointing). 
> 
> I sort of needed to get out of the way the fact that France as a country didn't exist in people's mind before the 20th century. Outside of Paris, it was like, very few people spoke French or thought of themselves as having to defend France etc. Even more so Booker's generation, with the Revolution. So I wanted to sort of point out at that through Booker. Hopefully I'll later be able to dig deeper into that! (through the already mentioned fic on his past!).
> 
> Plus having him punch some far-right sort of makes me feel better. And I needed his wife to appear, because I think she would have been bad-ass and he would have been just gone for her.


End file.
